Facebook is gearing up to announce a big, new phone product tomorrow. We don’t know what it will look like, but this is already good news. Facebook needs a tighter integration with smartphones if it wants to grow. It has also reportedly paired up with Android and HTC, which suggests low-cost phones.
That’s more good news. Facebook needs momentum in emerging markets, where smartphone sales are advancing at breakneck speed. With expectations high, Facebook’s stock closed up 3.3% in New York today.
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Now comes the tough part.
Facebook has to establish stronger international partnerships with mobile operators and app developers if it truly wants to advance its mobile prospects in emerging markets.
Take India. The country has Facebook’s third largest user base with 62.6 million users in January 2013, still representing just 5.4% of the country’s population. Meanwhile smartphone shipments to India grew by 75% in the second half of 2012 from the first half, and the country is the second biggest market for the Android operating system.
Plenty of room to grow. Yet Facebook could struggle to shop a more deeply-embedded mobile service in emerging markets, where local apps born on mobile platforms dominate the landscape. These are apps like WhatsApp and Nimbuzz that are not popular, but already have all-important, complex relationships with local carriers and even mobile developers.
Nimbuzz is one of India’s most popular mobile messaging services, claiming 150 million global users, with more than 60% in Asia and the Middle East. Chief Executive Vikas Saxena says that Facebook’s Messenger service is “pretty basic” considering it doesn’t have the kind of educational apps, multimedia messaging, discounted calling and app marketplace that his platform has.
“We have apps that are relevant to local society,” says Saxena, citing dating apps, and Chatroulette-like apps that are popular in local culture and countries like Saudi Arabia where greater social restrictions exist for young people, particularly young women. By contrast, he says, “Facebook is known for known friends.”
Another advantage that Nimbuzz and other native mobile companies have in emerging markets is their relationships with mobile operators. With credit and debit card penetration low in India, smartphone users typically buy apps through their telco billing system.
For now if you buy an app on Facebook’s App Center through a smartphone, you’re sent to either Google Play or Apple’s App Store to make your purchase. It is unclear if Facebook’s new phone products will offer operator billing systems to make it easier for users in emerging markets to buy apps, and Facebook did not respond to a request for comment.
Nimbuzz, headquartered in India, has spent the last few years forming partnerships in India’s byzantine telecommunications industry, and has subscriber billing in place for the country’s eight big telco firms. India is divided into 22 geographic service areas, known as circles, and while some telco companies have centralized systems, others are decentralised so that each “circle” exists as a separate entity.
“You have to talk to each of them” says Saxena, who has at least 10 Nimbuzz staffers tasked full-time with maintaining telco partnerships. “Then you have Yemen, Pakistan, Nepal. It’s mind-boggling complexity.”
Nimbuzz is not the only messaging app busy forming partnerships with international mobile operators. Messaging giant WhatsApp, estimated to have between 200 and 300 million global users, has also partnered with more than 10 international operators in countries like Saudi Arabia, Hong Kong and Chile, to be packaged into data plans those operators sell. Partnerships between messaging services and the carriers whose business models they are disrupting might seem paradoxical, but they are growing according to Ovum, and happening most often in Asia Pacific.
Researchers at Analysys Mason say that Facebook needs to become more native on mobile if it wants user engagement to grow. They also say that engagement could increase six-fold for Facebook if the social network becomes the default communication platform for calling, messaging and email on smartphones.
But becoming “more native” means Facebook needs to establish clear billing systems in local markets, which means striking relationships with local carriers. It also needs to offer more compelling features than the messaging companies that are already dominating emerging markets, like WhatsApp, Nimbuzz and KakaoTalk.
According to Nielsen, WhatsApp Messenger is the most popular app in India, followed by Facebook,. Nimbuzz comes in fourth place, but Facebook Messenger, which seems key to Facebook’s mobile future with its real-time chat and forthcoming VoiP functionality, comes in at 6th.
Keeping up with the messaging companies alone is enough to explain why a Facebook phone has been rumoured to have been in the pipeline for so long – since at least 2011. The shift towards more permanency on mobile phones is crucial for Facebook, but it won’t be easy in emerging markets.

YouTube is filled with inspirational videos of all types, including those created by businesses or individuals looking to inspire others to succeed. Let’s look at 100 of the most inspiring business videos ever placed on this site.

Starting a business involves planning, making key financial decisions and completing a series of legal activities. These 10 easy steps can help you plan, prepare and manage your business. Click on the links to learn more.

You need a good idea. Startup cash can make a real difference. Business experience and savvy also help, of course. But to take advantage of the most powerful weapon an entrepreneur can have, find a mentor.

A good mentor helps you think through a business idea, suggests ways to generate that startup capital and provides the experience and savvy you’re missing. You’ll get praise when you deserve it and a heads-up when trouble comes — probably long before you would have noticed it yourself.

My grandfather who owned a memorabilia and antique shop in Vancouver, British Columbia, was a natural entrepreneur. He helped my brother Matthew and me launch our first successful venture: selling toy airplanes at a local festival when we were just seven and eight years old. With his help, we developed just the right marketing strategy — putting on a show with the planes that created excitement and a “wow” impact. We sold out of planes in just two hours.

Our first mentor was someone whom we trusted and who cared about our success. He had the knowledge and skills to keep us focused, and he knew a small early success would spur us on to more entrepreneurial attempts. Looking back, I realize he really engineered our first foray into business to build our confidence and help us understand what it’s like to work for ourselves. Even now, nearly 30 years later, Matthew and I find ourselves remembering his advice when we’re planning or making decisions.

Although few entrepreneurs are fortunate enough to have a keen mentor in the family, it is possible to find one or two. Here are eight tips to getting the right mentor — or group of mentors — for you:

Determine your needs. Keeping in mind that your mentoring needs will shift as you start and build your business, take the time to determine exactly what kind of mentor you want now. Are you having trouble with the numbers, understanding your market or operations? Are you ready to ramp up production or still playing with concepts? Build a wish list for your mentor — laying out what skills and support you need to get to the next step.

Take time to network. Networking isn’t just important for finding customers. It’s also vital for finding a mentor. Who do you want helping you? Someone who sits in an office and thinks connecting with the business community means reading a couple of magazines a month? No, you want someone who’s out there, knows the market and can point you in the right direction.

Listen more, talk less. Given your youthful enthusiasm for entrepreneurship, it may be hard to stay silent. But to find a mentor, you need to listen — a lot. Pay attention and you‘ll be able to separate the smart potential mentors from those who just use all the right words.

Be “mentorable.” If you come off as someone who knows everything — or thinks you do — many people will back away. If you want to learn, be willing to consider ideas that may not match your expectations or opinions. Above all, don’t fall victim to your own hype. Your business may or may not have serious problems, but another viewpoint will help you sort things out.

Remain flexible. You may have mentors who stay with you over the long haul, but you will also benefit from people who provide just an afternoon of insightful ideas. If you are fortunate enough to get time with someone who is rarely available, absorb all you can and take notes. Your mentor may be skilled only in one specific area, but that’s okay. All help is good help.

Don’t overlook nontraditional mentors. Some mentors may help you without their knowledge through books, seminars, speeches, videos on Ted, TV programs and the internet. My brother and I always looked to Richard Branson as one of our mentors. We don’t have to meet him in person to appreciate all he provides to entrepreneurs and others all over the world.

Thank your mentors. When people help you, intentionally or unintentionally, let them know. Mentors are not in it for the money; they just want to help others grow. Think about what you can do to let them know how much you appreciate them and their help.

Pay it forward. You may never be able to pay your mentors back, but you can recognize what they’ve done for you by becoming a mentor to others. That’s one reason we started YoungEntrepreneur.com: to support those who share our dreams and goals.

1. Get specific. When you set yourself a goal, try to be as specific as possible. “Lose 5 pounds” is a better goal than “lose some weight,”

2. Seize the moment to act on your goals. Given how busy most of us are, and how many goals we are juggling at once, it’s not surprising that we routinely miss opportunities to act on a goal because we simply fail to notice them.

3. Know exactly how far you have left to go. Achieving any goal also requires honest and regular monitoring of your progress

4. Be a realistic optimist. When you are setting a goal, by all means engage in lots of positive thinking about how likely you are to achieve it.

5. Focus on getting better, rather than being good. Believing you have the ability to reach your goals is important, but so is believing you can get the ability.

6. Have grit. Grit is a willingness to commit to long-term goals, and to persist in the face of difficulty.

7. Build your willpower muscle. Your self-control “muscle” is just like the other muscles in your body — when it doesn’t get much exercise, it becomes weaker over time.

8. Don’t tempt fate. No matter how strong your willpower muscle becomes, it’s important to always respect the fact that it is limited, and if you overtax it you will temporarily run out of steam.

9. Focus on what you will do, not what you won’t do. Do you want to successfully lose weight, quit smoking, or put a lid on your bad temper?

Heidi Grant Halvorson, Ph.D. is a motivational psychologist, and author of the new bookSucceed: How We Can Reach Our Goals(Hudson Street Press, 2011). She is also an expert blogger on motivation and leadership for Fast Company and Psychology Today. Her personal blog, The Science of Success, can be found at www.heidigranthalvorson.com. Follow her on Twitter @hghalvorson

By Ron Pacchiano | Published on: 08-Dec-11

The ability to locate your data when you need it is an essential skill for anyone who uses a computer. Unfortunately, many people become very frustrated performing this relatively simple task. This is due to either a simple lack of understanding in how to navigate Windows or just years of bad file-management practices.

I’ve seen many smart, business-savvy people save Word documents to wherever the system defaults to, with no idea how to locate them outside of the application they were created in. They’d also swear their mother’s grave that they’d copied a file to their USB flash drive, and yet the file would never be on the disk. So, if you — or someone you know — could use a bit of file management help, these six tips will come in handy.

1. Get Comfortable using Windows Explorer

The primary culprit behind poor file-management skills seems to be a lack of understanding of how to navigate Windows. Therefore the single most important tip I can give is to learn to use Windows Explorer.

Windows Explorer displays the hierarchical structure of files, folders, and drives on your computer. It also shows any network drives that have been mapped to drive letters on your computer. Windows Explorer is your primary tool for copying, moving, renaming and searching for files and folders.

Once you can successfully navigate your computer’s drive and folder structure, you’ll be hard-pressed to misplace anything. To open Windows Explorer, you click Start > All Programs > Accessories, and then select Windows Explorer. To help get you started, check out How to Navigate Windows 7 with Windows Explorer from Dummies.com.

2. Store All of Your Data in a Single Location

Keeping your files and folders organized on the computer is no more difficult than keeping them organized in real life. For most of us, our files reside in one location; usually a file cabinet. Do the same on your computer and appoint one primary folder to store all of your data.

The easiest way to do this, especially if you’re not terribly proficient, is to take advantage of the default Documents folder built into Windows. Windows XP users know this as My Documents. Windows 7 refers to this folder as User’s Files, and it’s typically found on the Windows desktop and labeled with your username.

Within this default folder you’ll find multiple folders here with names like My Pictures, My Music and My Videos. This encourages you to group similar file types together. This structure not only makes it easier to locate your files quickly, it allows even inexperienced users to intuitively store their pictures in the My Pictures folder and their music in the My Music folder; thus reinforcing good file management skills. This approach also makes it very easy to archive or transfer their data to another system.

3. Use Shortcuts

One of the simplest ways to be productive, yet still keep your files properly organized is to use shortcuts. Instead of copying a word document to your desktop for quick and easy access, get in the habit of creating a shortcut to the file. This avoids unnecessary file duplication while at the same time keeping your files where they belong.

Plus, should you accidently delete the shortcut from your desktop, you won’t have to worry about recovering the file, since deleting the shortcut does not affect the original file. You can use shortcuts with any file type, and they’re easy to create. Just right-click on the file and choose Create shortcut. The shortcut appears within the same folder as the original file. You can identify the shortcut by a small arrow in the lower left of the icon. Now just cut and paste the shortcut to a location that’s most convenient for you.

4. Keep File Names Short

Although Windows is capable of using file names as long as 255 characters, keep your filenames as short as possible. While long filenames are harder to read, those 255 characters also have to account for the entire file path. For instance, if you had a file named “2011 business Projections” on your desktop, then the path for that file would be something like: C:\windows\users\username\desktop\2011 Business Projections, which more than doubles the number of characters.

This number increases dramatically when you have files stored in nested subfolders, and it could lead to problems down the road when you archive or transfer them. To keep your filenames to a reasonable length, use abbreviations such as Dept as opposed to Department. Or instead of using a full date like September 25th, 2011, use 9-25-11. Little things like that will significantly decrease the length of your filenames and still keep them easily identifiable.

5. Use Descriptive Folders to Identify Files

Folders can help you break the files down into smaller, more easily identifiable units. Let’s use books as an example. Instead of a filename like Harry_Potter _and _The_Deathly_Hallows_by_JK_Rowling.epub, you can shorten it considerably — and better organize it — by using folders. For instance, create a folder called JK_Rowling and then a sub-folder called Harry Potter. Now store the book in the Harry Potter folder with the name The_Deadly_Hallows.epub.

This folder method is much more concise; it lets you shorten the filename and storing the book by either series or author makes it easier to locate. This will not only work with books, but all of your data as well. Music can be stored in the My Music folder, broken down further by Artist and Album. Word documents and spreadsheets can be stored in either a Work or Personal folder, further sorted by Project or Event. Remember, the more detailed you can be in defining your folders the easier it will be to locate what you need when you need it.

6. Group Projects Components Together

You can also benefit by storing all components of a project under a single folder. I once provided IT support for an architecture company where this was a standard practice. Anyone working on a particular project, regardless of their role on the project, knew that whatever information they needed, whether it be CAD drawings, photos, status reports, invoices, presentations, etc., lived in that folder. Another benefit: if you store all the project components in one folder, it’s much easier to move or archive once the project is completed.

If your website contains a Content Management System (CMS), such as Drupal or WordPress, you’ll want to take a look at the plugins that are available for mobile editions. Plugins optimize your website for mobile viewing and are often the easiest options to use. Many are free, but some charge a premium.

“We have two go-to plugins for optimizing a WordPress website for mobile. Mobile from PluginBuddy, a premium plugin that starts at $45, is one. The support you receive for your $45 investment is stellar to say the least,” said Jarrod “Jay” Skeggs, partner at StudioD.tv. “WPtouch, a free plugin, is another. We have had good experience with it in the past.”

“There are a number of sites that offer mobile website building services — often at no cost,” said Drew Barton, president and founder of Southern Web Group, a web design firm. “For example, Mobify has a free option. The service is widely used by some of the world’s leading publications.”

The dotMobi mobile website tool, Instant Mobilizer, is arguably the best known and is even incorporated on several leading website hosting services such as GoDaddy.com. However, dotmobi websites do not actually need third-party hosting.

“GoMobi websites are hosted ‘in the cloud’ by DotMobi, so SMBs don’t pay extra for hosting or have to worry about other technology aspects,” said Trey Harvin, CEO of DotMobi. “Since a GoMobi website works on all mobile handsets, it ensures a business is available on the complete range of mobiles available, not just iPhones and Androids.”

3. Avoid using Flash

“Get rid of Flash. Period, end of story,” said Kate McGinley, vice president of operations at McGinley Media Limited, a mobil app and website development firm. “It’s often not supported, and when it does, it takes too long to load, and you lose viewer interest.” Unfortunately, many regular websites do include Flash. Be extra careful to find it and eliminate it on the pages you want to be mobile friendly.

4. Keep the ‘Fat Finger’ in mind

Nothing detracts from a mobile experience more than a frustrated consumer unable to navigate a mobile site and click on hyperlinked text, warned Diane Buzzeo, CEO of Ability Commerce. Given the small size of a mobile screen, make text links larger for a mobile website. Similarly, make it easy for people browsing a phone to call you. “Phone numbers normally displayed in text can be enhanced with code to call upon touch,” she said. “Using TapToCall for customer service lines and other numbers is easy to integrate and a good alternative to advanced coding.”

5. Find good website models

Look at sites that have well-built mobile versions and how they contrast with their traditional desktop site. Amazon, Newegg and CNN are a few examples where you can draw inspiration and best practices. “You’ll find that they have removed animation and hover text, Web features that don’t transfer over to mobile devices well,” explained Buzzeo. “Take a cue from the leader in the industry and then test based on your own customer demographics.”

Testing is important in order to see your mobile website as your customers do. Testing on actual devices can be difficult, especially if you don’t already own all the devices you need to test. However, online testing sites are typically not as good as testing on the real device.

Try asking friends and customers to try your site on their device and offer feedback. This will dramatically reduce your testing cost, but it will also provide you with valuable insight into what your actual customers prefer to see on your new mobile-friendly website.